Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Question of the day: Will my homeowners insurance cover my home, which is sinking into a bog?

As we mentioned earlier today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an interesting story today about the fact that much of Seattle is apparently built on bogs, and that drainage from development seems be drying out the bogs. Result: the land under some people's homes is dropping. The story highlights the case of a man whose land has sunk two feet, bending pipes and causing other problems.

And so, the obvious question for this blog: Would homeowner's insurance cover this type of damage?

Unfortunately, probably not. "Soil subsidence" and settling are typically excluded from homeowners policies. This is a significant problem, it turns out, in places with lots of old abandoned mines.